Some men can’t even cope with a female commentator on football so a field full of women is clearly beyond them.
It will take time, there are many girls who play football now, many dads invested in their daughters as well as their sons playing at the weekend.
I was talking to H, who is a football fan of one team, takes son to play and train all year round, about the Lionesses and the difference in viewing and atmosphere.
Female football is a different game, partly through lack of investment and opportunity historically and physically. Male professional players, you don’t really get the feel of it just on tv, play the game at a ridiculous speed and in H’s words “once in a generation you get a player or two who can do ridiculous things with a ball Ronaldo and Messi, more Messi he has done stuff with a ball that I still can’t figure out how he did it”
Saying this, we discussed that is not to dismiss the female game, it is still competitive football because both teams are female with similar physical and technical abilities. But it is a different game. And when I pointed out the inevitable online trolling he said yeah but imagine the stick the men’s team would’ve got if they took 13 penalties to win, which was a fair point, if you play football professionally apparently anonymous wankers, some of who can’t run for a bus, feel like they can type what they like regardless of how nasty and feel like “they’ve done their bit”
Lionesses could run circles around almost every man who dismisses them out of sexism, there are many mums and daughters who are looking forward to cheering on our female football team, having an team who are inspiring to young girls to exercise, watch competition and have healthy bodies that aren’t stick thin or pumped of plastic is a good thing.
And the men who are sexist, let them slump in a corner, some women are sexist as well, let them sulk and troll on their keyboards, they become more irrelevant with each passing year.
Some men are sexist, racist, homophobic knobends. We meet them out and about and they are terribly dull. They don’t realise how boring and dumb they are, they think their insights into the beautiful game are worthy and it’s only not being in the right place at the right time that they weren’t either on the pitch for England and/or in the Manager’s job.
We have also seen some dads behave appallingly at grassroots football with their sons, so desperate are they for the spawn of their mighty balls to be the next Messi with “that’s my pension right there” comments. or actual fighting with teenage referees, shouting at their sons, they are cruel to their boys.
Football can bring out the best and worse in people.
Bunch of grunts sulking because it’s a female final, yeah standard, who cares, we’re going to watch it later with our boys, it’s still football (and our youngster will watch any old kickabout and the final will be much better than that)